Then and Now...

   Recently I applied for a grant. This was the first time I had gone through this process and in doing so I was given the gift of looking back over at my 50+ year history as a painter. One of the grant requirements was to write a narrative of my journey as an artist and to accompany this narrative with photos of my work.
   The grant application is now signed, sealed and sent off into the internet ethers, but still in my thoughts. Not in the sense of will I get it or not, but with the deeper realization that the vast portion of my life has been spent pursing this passion to paint! I find myself still amazed that at 16 years old my heart was cracked so wide open by the words in a book, Van Gogh: a self portrait a collection of letters written to his brother Theo.
    Last October this book came back into my life. One of my sisters was moving to Hawaii and clearing out her collection of books and there it was, my book complete with my name, address and phone number I had written on the back page some 50+ years ago.
   Fate? Serendipity? I would like to think of it as a reaffirmation of my path, my destiny. I am a painter and though it has not always sustained me financially it has always filled my heart.
    "In those (paintings) there is at least something straight from my own heart."Vincent Van Gogh
     

Daisies 71/2" x 16 3/8" oil on tagboard/ Mary Anita Winklea 1963

Garden Storm 12" x 12" oil on canvas/Mary Anita Winklea 2016